When I was younger, I used to have nightmares that never really made any sense to me. I saw horrible scenes of people screaming and crying in the midst of chaos, while others were being shot or bludgeoned to death. I saw the parched dirt roads drenched in a scarlet flood of betrayal as daughters and sons were made to turn against their fathers and mothers. I saw people walking around on stumps, deformed faces caused by the paths they’d chosen to walk on. This was my life before America. They were shards of a past that, even after more than 20 years have passed, I still haven’t gotten over…

I was flipping through the tv channels today and I happened to stop on MTV as they were airing an episode of True Life. I was immediately caught off guard and entranced by the eerily familiar images of dirt roads, bamboo huts, and the World Relief insignia. The title of this episode was “I’m coming to America.” They were documenting the resettlement journey of a Burmese refugee family to the United States, all through the eyes of the eldest son.

As I watched on and listened to his story, my tears began to flow like the Mekong during monsoon season. I couldn’t help but connect to Thimonthy as I watched his story mirror mine. As he walked through the refugee camp, I walked with him feeling the suffocation and depression encroaching with each passing day. This was life in the camp, an endless battle to hold on to the hope that one day, you’ll be one of the lucky few selected to breathe the air of freedom once again…

As the bus drove away from the refugee camp and everything he had ever known, I understood his fear and apprehension masked behind a guise of hope that life in America would somehow be better. “No problem,” Thimonthy said over and over again, hoping that with each time, it’d be more believable. Like Thimonthy, these same words were echoed by my father and mother. I’m not sure if it was because they lacked the vocabulary to truly express their feelings, but regardless, these two words have bound a community of survivors and heroes determined to find a better life, no matter what the cost or sacrifice…

More than two decades have passed since my family and I left Cambodia, but I’ve not forgotten the struggles and hardships we’ve had to endure to get to where we are today. As an American, I think it’s easy for me to take both freedom and hope for granted, but no matter where life takes me, I can never forget the texture of those bamboo huts, the pictures of those who preceded me, nor the moment when the bus pulled away and I watched as my extended family was slowly enveloped by the dust…

Life is an impossible ocean to navigate through without having hope as our compass, and the past as our keel…